How To Make Cupid's Harp Decorated Cookies for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day pretty much gets me through the entire month of January.

January 1-8: I take down my Christmas Tree and all the lights and decorations and I fill the void in my frozen tundra of a life with deep reds and bright pinks and pretend that the colors themselves can give off warmth just by loving them. As it turns out... they cannot.

January 9-12: I lie on the couch under the warmth of the electric blanket my grandmother gave me for Christmas, hoping I never have to leave the house again and internet researching endless Valentine's Day craft projects I can do all by myself...and maybe a few I can do with my children too.

January 13: I actually leave the house to purchase everything I need for the craft projects. Which, as luck would have it, is actually kind of a lot since I purged my craft closet right before Christmas and got rid of all that "junk" that is now in my shopping cart. Also... I wonder if anyone has invented electric pants. It's COLD outside!

January 14-17: More internet researching with my electric blanket.

January 18-21: I attempt my Valentine's Day crafts, give up on them and give all my new crafting tools and supplies to my girls. Their joy is worth the price of the trip to Michael's.

January 22: I wonder if Cadbury has started making Valentine's Day candy yet and I venture out YET AGAIN into what is surely a blizzard to see what kind of candy I can procure while claiming to be "out of milk."

January 23-28: I'm not really sure what happened to these days, but I wake up with a headache, surrounded by piles of empty candy wrappers. It was probably ninjas.

January 29-31: I get down to business and finally make some Valentine's Day cookies.

I might have skipped my candy coma this year and gone straight for the decorated cookies. What can I say? These Cupid's Mix Cookies just had to be made! The best part is that they are all insanely easy to make...which leave me with plenty of time to go out "for some milk."

1. I bent the bottom edge of my tombstone cutter out just enough to give it a more rounded look. Once baked, outline and fill the cookies. Allow to dry overnight.
2. With a medium consistency gold icing and a #2 tip, pipe a curved "U" shape for the harp body. Let it dry for at least an hour.
3. Use thick black icing and a #1.5 tip to pipe 5 black strings. I find that if I start with the middle string, I tend to get straighter lines that are more centered.
4. Add details lines at the base and neck of the harp with the same gold icing. Let it dry for a few more hours.
5. If you want to paint it gold...now would be the time. You don't have to though...because you already made the icing gold. Exactly three people will notice if you paint it gold on top of that. Either way...the last step is to pipe 3 accent dots on either side of the harp. Actually, nothing in this entire step is necessary. You totally don't have to do the dots either. I did. Because I like them. That's why.

If you wanted to go all-out Quick and Easy...you could do most of the harp wet-on-wet. I made a video to show you.

LilaLoa

The Cookie Artist

Georganne Bell is the mess maker and cookie decorator behind the cookie blog LilaLoa. Obsessed with color and texture, she has been experimenting and creating with cookies and icing since 2010. She also gives plenty of unsolicited advice and occasionally does laundry before it becomes strictly necessary.

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